January 4, 2013
In the 1990s Doc Ross was making seascapes and abstract images, and the photographs he took of buildings and streets in Christchurch CBD were more of an aside. By framing the city through his lens, Ross used his camera to become familiar with, and generate a fondness for, his newly adopted home. The resulting negatives were stored unprinted and unvisited in his archive as the photographs were ‘taken without much intent or thought for how, or even if, they would ever be used.
Until March 2011. With the collapsed and freshly demolished buildings from the earthquake Ross suddenly realised he had a collection of recent images of the city that formed an inadvertent historical record:
Doc Ross, Gravestons Building, Sydenham, Christchurch
Ross had built up a significant body of work relating to the local architectural heritage and urban spaces. It's old Christchurch, before the quakes – a body of photographs that Doc took in the city between 1998 and 2011, when everything was still (mostly) intact.